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Say something.
“I thought being chosen for Blackcliff was an honor.”
“Not for me,” he says. “Coming to Blackcliff wasn’t a choice. The Augurs
brought me here when I was six.” He picks up his scim and slowly wipes it
clean. I recognize the intricate etchings on it—it’s a Teluman blade. “I lived with
the Tribes back then. I’d never met my mother. I’d never even heard the name
Veturius.”
“But how . . . ” Veturius as a child. I’ve never considered it. I’ve never
wondered if he knew his father, or if the Commandant raised him and loved him.
I’ve never wondered, because he’s never been anything more than a Mask.
“I’m bastard-born,” Veturius says. “The only mistake Keris Veturia has ever
made. She bore me and then exposed me in the Tribal desert. It’s where she was
stationed. That would have been the end of me, but a Tribal scouting party
happened along. Tribesmen think baby boys are good luck, even abandoned
ones. Tribe Saif adopted me, raised me as one of their own. Taught me their
language and stories, dressed me in their clothes. They even gave me my name.
Ilyaas. My grandfather changed it when I came to Blackcliff. Turned it into
something more appropriate for a son of Gens Veturia.”
The tension between Veturius and his mother is suddenly clear. The woman
never even wanted him. Her ruthlessness astounds me. I’d helped Pop bring
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dozens of newborns into the world. What kind of person could leave something
so small, so precious, to die of heat and starvation?
The same person who could carve a
K
into a girl for opening a letter. The
same person who would dash out a five-year-old’s eye with a poker.
“What do you remember from that time?” I ask. “From when you were a
child? From before Blackcliff?”
Veturius frowns and puts a hand to his temple. The mask shimmers strangely
at his touch, like a pool rippling beneath a drop of rain.
“I remember everything. The caravan was like a small city—Tribe Saif is
dozens of families strong. I was fostered by the tribe’s
Kehanni
, Mamie Rila.”
He speaks for a long time, and his words weave a life before my eyes, the life
of a dark-haired, curious-eyed child who snuck out from lessons so he could go
adventuring, who waited eagerly at the edge of camp for the men of the Tribe to
return from their merchant forays. A boy who scrapped with his foster brother
one minute and laughed with him the next. A child without fear, until the Augurs
came for him and plunged him into a world ruled by it. But for the Augurs, it
could be Darin he is speaking of. It could be me.
When he falls silent, it’s as if a warm, gold haze has been lifted from the
room. He has a
Kehanni
’s skill at storytelling. I look up at him, surprised to see
not the boy but the man he has become. Mask. Aspirant. Enemy.
“I’ve bored you,” he says.
“No. Not at all. You—you were like me. You were a child. A normal child.
And that was taken from you.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Well, it certainly makes you harder to hate.”
“Seeing the enemy as a human. A general’s ultimate nightmare.”
“The Augurs brought you to Blackcliff. How did it happen?”
This time, his pause is longer, heavy with the taint of a memory better
forgotten.
“It was autumn—the Augurs always bring a new crop of Yearlings in when
the desert winds are at their worst. The night they came to the Saif encampment,
the Tribe was happy. Our chief had just returned from a successful trade, and we
had new clothes and shoes—even books. The cooks slaughtered two goats and
spit-roasted them. The drums beat, the girls sang, and stories poured from
Mamie Rila for hours.
“We celebrated into the night, but finally, everyone slept. Everyone but me.
I’d had this strange sense for hours—that some darkness was closing in. I saw
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shadows outside the wagon, shadows circling the camp. I looked out of the
wagon, where I was sleeping, and saw this . . . this man. Black clothing and red
eyes and skin without any color at all. An Augur. He said my name. I remember
thinking he must be part reptile, because his voice came out of him like a hiss.
And that was it. I was chained to the Empire. I was chosen.”
“Were you afraid?”
“Terrified. I knew he was there to take me away. And I didn’t know where, or
why. They brought me to Blackcliff. Cut off my hair, took my clothes, and put
me in a pen outside with the others for a culling. Soldiers threw us moldy bread
and jerky once a day, but back then, I wasn’t very big, so I never got much.
Midway through the third day, I was sure I would die. So I snuck out of the pen
and stole food from the guards. I shared it with my lookout. Well . . . ” He looks
up, considering. “I say
share
, but really, she ate most of it. Anyway, after seven
days, the Augurs opened the pen, and those of us still alive were told that if we
fought hard, we would be the guardians of the Empire, and if we didn’t, we’d be
dead.”
I can see it. The small bodies of those left behind. The fear in the eyes of
those who lived. Veturius as a boy, afraid and starved, determined not to die.
“You survived.”
“I wish I hadn’t. If you’d seen the Third Trial—if you knew what I did . . . ”
He polishes the same spot on one of the scims over and over.
“What happened?” I ask softly. He is silent for so long that I think I’ve
angered him, that I’ve crossed a line. Then he tells me. He pauses frequently, and
his voice goes from broken to flat. He keeps working on the scim, shining it,
then sharpening it with a whetstone until it gleams.
When he is done speaking, he hangs the scim up. The streaks running down
his mask catch the firelight, and I understand, now, why he was shaking when he
walked in, why his eyes are so haunted.
“So you see,” he says, “I’m just like the Mask who killed your grandparents.
I’m just like Marcus. Worse, actually, because such men consider it their duty to
kill. I know better. And I did it anyway.”
“The Augurs didn’t give you a choice. You couldn’t find Aquilla to end the
Trial, and if you hadn’t fought, you’d have died.”
“Then I should have died.”
“Nan always said that as long as there is life, there is hope. If you’d refused
to give the order, your men would be dead right now—either at the hands of the
Augurs or on the blades of Aquilla’s platoon. Don’t forget: She chose life for
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herself and her men. Either way, you’d have blamed yourself. Either way, people
you cared about would have suffered.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“But it
does
matter. Of course it matters. Because you’re not evil.” The
knowledge is a revelation and one so staggering that I badly want him to see it
too. “You’re not like the others. You killed to save. You put others first. Not—
not like me.”
I can’t bring myself to look at Veturius. “When the Mask came, I ran.” The
words spill out of me, a tumbling river I’ve dammed up for too long. “My
grandparents were dead. The Mask had Darin, my brother. Darin told me to run,
even though he needed me. I should have helped him, but I couldn’t. No.” I dig
my fists into my thighs. “I
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